We report the results of a first search for a doubly charged $DDK$ bound state, denoted the $R^{++}$, in $\mathrm{\Upsilon }(1S)$ and $\mathrm{\Upsilon }(2S)$ inclusive decays and via direct production in $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=10.520$, 10.580, and 10.867 GeV. The search uses data accumulated with the Belle detector at the KEKB asymmetric-energy $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ collider. No significant signals are observed in the $D^{+}{D}_s^{*+}$ invariant-mass spectra of all studied modes. The 90% credibility level upper limits on their product branching fractions in $\mathrm{\Upsilon }(1S)$ and $\mathrm{\Upsilon }(2S)$ inclusive decays ($\mathcal{B}(\mathrm{\Upsilon }(1S,2S)\to R^{++}+\text{anything})\times \mathcal{B}({\mathrm{R}}^{++}\to {\mathrm{D}}^{+}{\mathrm{D}}_{\mathrm{s}}^{*+})$), the product values of Born cross section and branching fraction in $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ collisions ($\sigma (e^{+}{e}^{-}\to R^{++}+\text{anything})\times \mathcal{B}({\mathrm{R}}^{++}\to {\mathrm{D}}^{+}{\mathrm{D}}_{\mathrm{s}}^{*+})$) at $\sqrt{s}=10.520$, 10.580, and 10.867 GeV under different assumptions of $R^{++}$ masses varying from 4.13 to $4.17\mathrm{GeV}/c^2$ and widths varying from 0 to 5 MeV are obtained.

As a modified gravity theory that introduces new gravitational degrees of freedom, the generalized SU(2) Proca theory (GSU2P for short) is the non-Abelian version of the well-known generalized Proca theory where the action is invariant under global transformations of the SU(2) group. This theory was formulated for the first time in Phys. Rev. D 94, 084041 (2016), having implemented the required primary constraint-enforcing relation to make the Lagrangian degenerate and remove one degree of freedom from the vector field in accordance with the irreducible representations of the Poincaré group. It was later shown in Phys. Rev. D 101, 045008 (2020) and 101, 045009 (2020) that a secondary constraint-enforcing relation, which trivializes for the generalized Proca theory but not for the SU(2) version, was needed to close the constraint algebra. It is the purpose of this paper to implement this secondary constraint-enforcing relation in GSU2P and to make the construction of the theory more transparent. Since several terms in the Lagrangian were dismissed in Phys. Rev. D 94, 084041 (2016) via their equivalence to other terms through total derivatives, not all of the latter satisfying the secondary constraint-enforcing relation, the work was not so simple as directly applying this relation to the resultant Lagrangian pieces of the old theory. Thus, we were motivated to reconstruct the theory from scratch. In the process, we found the beyond GSU2P.

The vacuum contribution to quark matter under a uniform magnetic field within the SU(3) version of the Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model is studied. The standard regularization procedure is examined and a new prescription is proposed. For this purpose analytic regularization and a subtraction scheme are used to deal with divergencies depending on the magnetic intensity. This scheme is combined with the standard three momentum cutoff recipe, and reduces to it for vanishing magnetic intensity. Furthermore, the effects of a direct coupling between the anomalous magnetic moments of the quarks and the magnetic field is considered. Single particle properties as well as bulk thermodynamical quantities are studied for a configuration of matter found in neutron stars. A wide range of baryonic densities and magnetic intensities are examined at zero temperature.

Solar interpretations of the recent XENON1T excess events, such as axion or dark photon emissions from the Sun, are thought to be at odds with stellar cooling bounds from the horizontal branch stars and red giants. We propose a simple effective field theory of a dark photon in which a $Z_2$ symmetry forbids a single dark photon emission in the dense stars, thereby evading the cooling bounds, while the $Z_2$ is spontaneously broken in the vacuum and Sun, thereby explaining the XENON1T excess. The scalar responsible for the $Z_2$ breaking has an extremely flat potential, but the flatness can be maintained under quantum corrections. The UV completion of the EFT generally requires the existence of new electrically charged particles with sub-TeV masses with $O(1)$ couplings to the dark photon, offering the opportunity to test the scenario further and opening a new window into the dark sector in laboratory experiments.

The meson decays $B\to D\tau \nu$ and $B\to D^{*}\tau \nu$ are sensitive probes of the $b\to c\tau \nu$ transition. In this work, we present a complete framework to obtain the maximum information on the physics of $B\to D^{(*)}\tau \nu$ with polarized $\tau$ leptons and unpolarized $D^{(*)}$ mesons. Focusing on the hadronic decays $\tau \to \pi \nu$ and $\tau \to \rho \nu$, we show how to extract seven $\tau$ asymmetries from a fully differential analysis of the final-state kinematics. At Belle II with $50{\mathrm{ab}}^{-1}$ of data, these asymmetries could potentially be measured with percent-level statistical uncertainty. This would open a new window into possible new physics contributions in $b\to c\tau \nu$ and would allow us to decipher its Lorentz and gauge structure.

Beyond the Standard Model scenarios with extensions of the Higgs sector typically predict new resonances that can undergo a series of cascade decays to detectable Standard Model particles. On one hand, sensitivity to such signatures will contribute to the full reconstruction of the extended Higgs potential if a new physics discovery will be made. On the other hand, such cascade decays could be dominant decay channels, thus being potentially the best motivated signatures to achieve a new physics discovery in the first place. In this work, we show how the long short-term memory that is encoded in the cascade decays’ phenomenology can be exploited in discriminating the signal from the background, where no such information is present. In parallel, we demonstrate for theoretically motivated scenarios that such an approach provides improved sensitivity compared to more standard analyses, where only information about the signal’s final state kinematics is included.

We study double-winding Wilson loops in $SU(N)$ lattice Yang-Mills gauge theory by using both strong coupling expansions and numerical simulations. First, we examine how the area law falloff of a “coplanar” double-winding Wilson loop average depends on the number of color $N$. Indeed, we find that a coplanar double-winding Wilson loop average obeys a novel “max-of-areas law” for $N=3$ and the sum-of-areas law for $N\ge 4$, although we reconfirm the difference-of-areas law for $N=2$. Second, we examine a “shifted” double-winding Wilson loop, where the two constituent loops are displaced from one another in a transverse direction. We evaluate its average by changing the distance of a transverse direction and we find that the long distance behavior does not depend on the number of color $N$, while the short distance behavior depends strongly on $N$.

A $U(1)$ gauge theory coupled to a Wilson fermion on a $2+1$ dimensional cubic lattice is known to exhibit Chern insulatorlike topological transitions as a function of the ratio $M/R$ where $M$ is the fermion mass and $R$ is the Wilson parameter. I show that, with $M$ and $R$ held fixed, a rectangular lattice with anisotropic lattice spacing can exhibit distinct topological phases as a function of the lattice anisotropy. As a consequence, a $2+1$ dimensional lattice theory without any domain wall in the fermion mass can still exhibit chiral edge modes on a $1+1$ dimensional defect across which lattice spacing changes abruptly. Likewise, a domain wall in the fermion mass on a uniform rectangular lattice can exhibit discrete changes in the number and chirality of zero modes as a function of lattice anisotropy. The construction presented in this paper can be generalized to higher dimensional space-time lattices.

We present a lattice-QCD calculation of the pion, kaon, and ${\eta }_s$ distribution amplitudes using large-momentum effective theory. Our calculation is carried out using three ensembles with $2+1+1$ flavors of highly improved staggered quarks, generated by MILC Collaboration, at 310-MeV pion mass with 0.06, 0.09, and 0.12 fm lattice spacings. We use clover fermion action for the valence quarks and tune the quark mass to match the lightest light and strange masses in the sea. The resulting lattice matrix elements are nonperturbatively renormalized in regularization-independent momentum-subtraction scheme and extrapolated to the continuum. We use two approaches to extract the $x$ dependence of the meson distribution amplitudes: (i) we fit the renormalized matrix elements in coordinate space to an assumed distribution form through a one-loop matching kernel and (ii) we use a machine-learning algorithm trained on pseudo lattice-QCD data to make predictions on the lattice data. We found the results are consistent between these methods with the latter method giving a less smooth shape. Both approaches suggest that as the quark mass increases, the distribution amplitude becomes narrower. Our pion distribution amplitude has broader distribution than predicted by light-front constituent-quark model, and the moments of our pion distributions agree with previous lattice-QCD results using the operator production expansion.

We develop the three-body $KK\overline{K}$ model for the $K(1460)$ resonance based on the Faddeev equations in configuration space. A single-channel approach is utilized that takes into account the difference of masses of neutral and charged kaons. It is demonstrated that the mass splitting of the $K(1460)$ resonance takes a place around 1460 MeV according to $K^0{K}^0{\overline{K}}^0$, $K^0{K}^{+}{K}^{-}$ and $K^{+}{K}^0{\overline{K}}^0$, $K^{+}{K}^{+}{K}^{-}$ neutral and charged particle configurations, respectively. The calculations are performed with two sets of $KK$ and $K\overline{K}$ phenomenological potentials, where strength interactions are considered the same for the isospin singlet and triplet states. We study the effect of repulsion of the $KK$ interaction on the mass of the $KK\overline{K}$ system and evaluate the effect of the mass polarization. The Coulomb interaction for description of the $K(1460)$ resonance is considered for the first time. The mass splitting in the $K(1460)$ resonances is evaluated to be in the range of 10 MeV with taking into account the Coulomb force. The three-body model with the $K\overline{K}$ potential, which has the different strengths of the isospin singlet and triplet interactions and is related to the condition of obtaining a quasibound three-body state is also considered. Our results are in reasonable agreement with the experimental mass of the $K(1460)$ resonance.

We investigate the appearance of straight infinite Wilson lines lying on the self-dual plane in the context of the self-dual sector of the Yang-Mills theory and in a connection to the Lagrangian implementing the maximally helicity violating (MHV) vertices (MHV Lagrangian) according to the Cachazo-Svrcek-Witten method. It was already recognized in the past by two of the authors, that such Wilson line functional provides the field transformation of positive helicity fields between the Yang-Mills theory on the light cone and the MHV Lagrangian. Here we discuss in detail the connection to the self-dual sector and we provide a new insight into the solution for the minus helicity field transformation, which can be expressed in terms of a functional derivative of the straight infinite Wilson line on the self-dual plane.

Upcoming experimental programs, including the Beam Energy Scan at RHIC, will look for signatures of a possible critical point in the QCD phase diagram in fluctuation observables. To understand and predict these signatures, one must account for the fact that the dynamics of any critical fluctuations must be out-of-equilibrium: because of critical slowing down, the fluctuations cannot stay in equilibrium as the droplet of quark gluon plasma produced in a collision expands and cools. Furthermore, their out-of-equilibrium dynamics must also influence the hydrodynamic evolution of the cooling droplet. The recently developed Hydro+ formalism allows for a consistent description of both the hydrodynamics and the out-of-equilibrium fluctuations, including the feedback between them. We shall provide an explicit demonstration of how this works, setting up a Hydro+ simulation in a simplified setting: a rapidity-independent fireball undergoing radial flow with an equation of state in which we imagine a critical point close to the ${\mu }_B=0$ axis of the phase diagram. Within this setup, we show that we can quantitatively capture nonequilibrium phenomena, including critical fluctuations over a range of scales and memory effects. Furthermore, we illustrate the interplay between the dynamics of the fluctuations and the hydrodynamic flow of the fireball: as the fluid cools and flows, the dynamical fluctuations lag relative to how they would evolve if they stayed in equilibrium; there is then a backreaction on the flow itself due to the out-of-equilibrium fluctuations; and, in addition, the radial flow transports fluctuations outwards by advection. Within our model, we find that the backreaction from the out-of-equilibrium fluctuations does not yield dramatically large effects in the hydrodynamic variables. Further work will be needed in order to check this quantitative conclusion in other settings but, if it persists, this will considerably simplify future modeling.

A measurement of the Higgs boson Yukawa coupling to the top quark is presented using proton-proton collision data at $\sqrt{s}=13\mathrm{TeV}$, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $137{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$, recorded with the CMS detector. The coupling strength with respect to the standard model value, $Y_t$, is determined from kinematic distributions in $t\overline{t}$ final states containing $ee$, $\mu \mu$, or $e\mu$ pairs. Variations of the Yukawa coupling strength lead to modified distributions for $t\overline{t}$ production. In particular, the distributions of the mass of the $t\overline{t}$ system and the rapidity difference of the top quark and antiquark are sensitive to the value of $Y_t$. The measurement yields a best fit value of ${Y_t=1.16}_{-0.35}^{+0.24}$, bounding $Y_t<1.54$ at a 95% confidence level.

The differential cross section and charge asymmetry for inclusive $W$ boson production at $\sqrt{s}=13\mathrm{TeV}$ is measured for the two transverse polarization states as a function of the $W$ boson absolute rapidity. The measurement uses events in which a $W$ boson decays to a neutrino and either a muon or an electron. The data sample of proton-proton collisions recorded with the CMS detector at the LHC in 2016 corresponds to an integrated luminosity of $35.9{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$. The differential cross section and its value normalized to the total inclusive $W$ boson production cross section are measured over the rapidity range $|y_W|<2.5$. In addition to the total fiducial cross section, the $W$ boson double-differential cross section, $d^2\sigma /d{p}_{\mathrm{T}}^{\ell }d|{\eta }^{\ell }|$, and the charge asymmetry are measured as functions of the charged lepton transverse momentum and pseudorapidity. The precision of these measurements is used to constrain the parton distribution functions of the proton using the next-to-leading order NNPDF3.0 set.

Using data collected in the Belle experiment at the KEKB asymmetric-energy $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ collider we search for transitions $\mathrm{\Upsilon }(4S)\to {\eta }_b(1S)\omega$, $\mathrm{\Upsilon }(5S)\to {\eta }_b(1S)\omega$ and $\mathrm{\Upsilon }(5S)\to {\eta }_b(2S)\omega$. No significant signals are observed and we set 90% confidence level upper limits on the corresponding visible cross sections: 0.2 pb, 0.4 pb and 1.9 pb, respectively.

Direct detection of light dark matter (DM), below the GeV scale, through electron recoil can be efficient if DM has a velocity well above the virial value of $v\sim {10}^{-3}$. We point out that if there is a long range attractive force sourced by bulk ordinary matter, i.e., baryons or electrons, DM can be accelerated towards the Earth and reach velocities $v\sim 0.1$ near the Earth’s surface. In this “attractive scenario,” all DM will be boosted to high velocities by the time it reaches direct detection apparatuses in laboratories. Furthermore, the attractive force leads to an enhanced DM number density at the Earth, facilitating DM detection even more. We elucidate the implications of this scenario for electron recoil direct detection experiments and find parameters that could lead to potential signals, while being consistent with stellar cooling and other bounds. Our scenario can potentially explain the recent excess in electron recoil signals reported by the XENON1T experiment in the $\sim \mathrm{keV}$ energy regime as well as the hint for nonstandard stellar cooling.

In this work the first exact asymptotically flat static and spherically symmetric black hole solution for ($3+1$)-dimensional extended scalar-tensor-Gauss-Bonnet theory is presented, with a model of nonlinear electrodynamics—which reduces to Maxwell’s theory in the weak field limit and satisfies the weak energy condition—as a source. The solution has a nonzero magnetic charge, and scalar hair, which turns out to be dependent of the magnetic charge. It is characterized by the Arnowitt-Deser-Misner mass $m$ and the magnetic charge $q$. Depending on the range of these parameters, the solution describes black holes with different structure. In the case $m\ge 0$ and $q\ge 0$, it shares many of the characteristics of the Schwarzschild solution. For $m>0$ and $q<0$, it is akin to the Reissner-Nordström metric. In the case $m=0$, it represents a purely magnetic black hole.

The same-sign charged Higgs pair production via vector-boson scattering is a useful probe of the mass spectrum among the heavier scalar, pseudoscalar, and charged Higgs bosons in two-Higgs-doublet models. It has been shown that the production cross section scales as the square of the mass difference $\mathrm{\Delta }m=(m_{H^0}-m_{A^0})$ in the alignment limit $(\cos (\beta -\alpha )=0)$. We study the potential measurement of this same-sign charged Higgs boson pair production at the high-luminosity LHC and the proposed 27 TeV $pp$ collider, with emphasis in the decay channel $H^{\pm }{H}^{\pm }\to (W^{\pm }{A}^0)(W^{\pm }{A}^0)$, which is in general the dominant mode when the charged Higgs mass is above the $W^{\pm }{A}^0$ threshold. We also examine the current allowed parameter space taking into account the theoretical constraints on the model, the electroweak precision test measurements, $B$ decays, and direct searches in the $H^{\pm }\to {\tau }^{\pm }{\nu }_{\tau }$ and $H^{\pm }\to W^{\pm }{A}^0\to ({\ell }^{\pm }{\nu }_{\ell })(\mu \mu )$.